This book is a sea of contradictions that don't really make any sense. While it is entertaining, I found it wildly uneven and not easily relatable. Our protagonist, Charlie, is one of the most weirdly-written characters I've read. This is a 15 year-old Freshman, who's regarded as "gifted" at one point, with the social skills and naïveté of a 9 year-old autistic outcast. (Yikes!) Romance, masturbation, or even censorship are notions wholly obscure to his unsullied and petty little mind. In light of this, and contrary to pretty much Universal Law (!), Charlie ends up befriending the coolest, most popular, and down-to-earth half-sibling Seniors in existence! (Like, for reals, they seem super nice). And as if that weren't pushing my suspension of disbelief to its breaking point, he has the greatest behavioral change in the shortest amount of time ever—and without even a hint of character development to boot. Just believe me when I say that this kid tells us*, through inanely written letters, about: domestic abuse, oral sex, regular sex, smoking and drug use, abortion, homosexual escapades, hangouts with teachers (in what freaking universe…?), weekly Rocky Horror Picture Show viewings ('cause nothing screams "we're hip" quite like this!), and his exceptional extracurricular college-level reading assignments (I mean,
The Fountainhead? As if! Here,
scoff at the list). And he does all of this while kicking ass. (And I mean that literally. He has fighting skills of vague origin that go shockingly against everything we've been told about him.)
It's utterly ridiculous, but people seem to love it. I guess there really are perks to being a wallflower.
* This is a guess. We never get the slightest idea about who he's writing to. He just decides to confide in, and relate his deepest and darkest secrets to a random fucking stranger he heard about. Ain't that mature?